Time Heals All Wounds
by PenPatronus
Summary: COMPLETE Who knows The Doctor better than Time itself? Time has secrets to share with YOU, readers, and with all fans of 'Doctor Who.'


**Summary:** Who knows The Doctor better than Time itself? Time has secrets to share with YOU, readers, and with all fans of 'Doctor Who.'

 **Time Heals All Wounds  
** PenPatronus

I am Time.

I was born blind and alone—just wings on the winds. I raced forward. There was no one to point me in any other direction. Onward I went. I sensed a distant companion, Space, and the souls that occupied the points where we intersect, but I couldn't SEE. I lost count of the generations. They passed. I passed. Few saw me as more than a noose slowly tightening around their throats.

And then I opened eyes I didn't know I had. Other eyes stared back. They measured me, experimented with me, and, eventually, understood me as best they could. They named themselves the Lords of Time. Can you picture anything more arrogant? Imagine one seed claiming ownership of an entire forest. Imagine a single atom declaring itself emperor of a galaxy! Imagine your child announcing that he not only knows everything about you, but can cheat and control you! No matter how grown up he insists he is, he is still just a child.

Still… Better the company of an ignorant child than no company at all. I was no longer alone. The Time Lords became my companions. Better—they became my eyes. I experienced the rest of the universe through them. It was worth the scar tissue they made of me. I endured the rips, the fissures, the burns. It was the Time Lords who first said that I heal all wounds. They're wrong about many things—nearly everything—but they're not wrong about that.

I taught the Time Lords how to treat me. I didn't tell them my rules but I trained them, gradually, by only letting them change me so much before there were consequences. They were only able to dam and redirect me like a river because I allowed them to. But, if they tried to change me too much, I put my proverbial foot down. Nobody likes to get bossed around. Especially the boss.

The Time Lords showed me that mortals think they're passing through Time. THROUGH me? Like a rabbit through a tunnel? Like roots through dirt? Like a knife through flesh? I'm the one passing through them. I'm what's moving while those so-called Lords stand still in their meat, thinking they can divide me into moments and eras and Saturdays. As if breaking me into smaller pieces will help them understand. As if declaring something "the past" and naming the unknown "the future" is quantifying me.

I laugh at their concept of "now." Their "then" is even more amusing. I watch them with a smile.

I didn't know I had ears. I didn't comprehend sound until I heard that baby cry. His voice penetrated the time winds, calling my name the moment he was born. He saw me the way blind artists see colors and deaf musicians feel music. Unlike the other Time Lords, he understood me as a partner during a journey, not as something to be conquered. Others held a knife to my throat, but he held my hand.

I know his name. So few do. I've watched him weep every time he reveals it. But he calls himself—and, somehow, it's more real than his "real" name—he calls himself The Doctor.

The Doctor. So beautiful. Fascinating. The one being in the infinite universe who understands me best. He has my attention as much as I have his. I watch him cry. I watch him grow. I watch his faces change.

No one knows The Doctor like I do. I authored his rules, and I hold him accountable to them. It hurts me more than it hurts him when there are consequences. When he weeps, I bleed. I burn. Sometimes the wounds he inflicts even slow me down. He senses that. He can almost feel my pain. I feel his, and what he doesn't know is that when he's in pain, I go faster. I push forward at a greater speed just so that he won't have to endure the pain for quite as long. It's all I can do for him, and I do it. If I could, I would use my winds to cast away the blood on his hands and the tears in his eyes…

The Doctor is never alone. Even when his companions are gone, even when his TARDIS is comatose, even when neither heart is beating, I'm still there. Life and Death visit like old friends, but Time is where he lives. I was with The Doctor when he cried himself to sleep in a barn. I was with him when he ran away, scared, in his time machine. I was with him when he spent four billion years punching a diamond wall.

I am his constant companion, his true companion.

And he is mine.

My foolish Doctor. He thinks there's an end to me. But one day, one very, very brave day, he'll travel past The End and discover that, like everything else, it's just another Beginning. And when that happens, he will regenerate. Again. Again, and for the last time. But, he won't regenerate into a man, a woman, or even into a Time Lord.

Our stories will merge. He will regenerate into ME.

Soon, The Doctor and I will be one. From my perspective, it's already happened.

I am Time. With me all things heal. So, what else am I, really, but a healer—a doctor?

Don't you understand?

I am Time.

And I **AM** The Doctor.

 **The End**


End file.
